*** A Yorkshire St. Pauli Update ***

The end of the season always give us as a group time to reflect on what we do, what we want to achieve and how we want to go about doing it. At the end of each season we survey our members to get feedback and vote on specific issues that have been raised. Ultimately the primary aim of the fanclub will always be to simply meet up regularly and watch St. Pauli games in Yorkshire, but thanks to the support and amazing work of our members over the past 3 years, we’ve become so much more than that too. A website, social media accounts, a fanzine, weekly football sessions with refugees and asylum seekers, not to mention we DJ’ed in the fantastic Jolly Roger this year, organised 2 group trips to Hamburg and met some fantastic and amazing people along the way. After (another) busy and fantastic year, it’s always good to reflect back, and at the same time look forward.

Several key things were voted on during the members survey. We have expanded our constitution. We had followed and used the constitution outlined by the Fanclubsprecherrat des FC St. Pauli (FCSR) who oversee all official fanclubs and provide a basic constitution which all fanclubs and their members should adhere to.

We have expanded upon this to cover all the activities we are involved in, to further regulate the financial side of the fanclub and also to detail the inner workings of the fanclub – such as our committee. The constitution can be read here: https://yorkshirestpauli.com/constitution/

We have introduced a ‘Social Fund’ which will be a separate fund collected by YSP to help fund social activities and events for people where we subsidise costs for people outside of our membership – such as refugees and asylum seekers. This started several weeks ago and through donations and fundraising we have already used this to provide football boots, shin pads and socks for refugees and asylum seekers at our ‘Football For All’ event.

Members also voted to increase the membership fee for next season, in order to continue supporting PAFRAS but also to give a percentage of each membership fee to the Social Fund to allow us to continue to run other activities and events which have been a great success this year. Members who are waged will pay a minimum £5, whereas unwaged individuals will be asked to contribute a minimum of £3. £1 from each membership fee will go direct to the fanclub to cover administration costs, and the remainder of the fees will be split 50/50 between PAFRAS and the Social Fund. Membership will open on July 1st, and more details will be on our site closer to the time.

Thanks to all of our members who have helped shape the fanclub, and to everyone who has supported what we are doing.